Since gun control is such a hot topic, the elite think tank the Project For a New American Decade (PNAD) has come up with a modest proposal to add to the national conversation. We think it’s worth a try.

First, we do the obvious, most sensible things: we establish universal background checks and dignified mental health services for those who exhibit a need for it. The third leg of the current gun control imbroglio -- banning AR-15s -- is a bit trickier.

On January 10, thirteen peace, veterans and faith organizations fromvarious parts of Oregon sent a letter to Governor John Kitzhaber urginghim to keep the Oregon National Guard from its planned deployment of 1800Oregonians to Afghanistan in 2014. The groups' letter cites a 2009 effortto keep the Guard in Oregon through the legislative process, and asimilar letter sent to Governor Ted Kulongoski in 2008. The full text ofthe new letter is below and on line athttp://www.pjw.info./guardletter2013.pdf .

The groups include locally based and statewide groups, groups connectedto national organizations, and groups based in at least 6 of Oregon's36 Counties. Two Portland area peace activists also signed the letter.

We are writing you today as organizations who, in 2009, worked with thelegislature to keep the Oregon National Guard from deploying intoundeclared military conflict zones in Iraq and Afghanistan, hoping youwill exercise your authority of the Commander in Chief of the Guard tokeep them from the planned deployment to Afghanistan in 2014.

Over 5500 people signed the petition supporting our legislation, known asHB 2556, and nearly 50 organizations supported the effort. We had pledgesfrom at least 30 members of the House to support the legislation, but itwas never brought to the floor.

The legal framework of the legislation was that the Authorization for Useof Military Force of September 18, 2001, which launched the "War onTerror," is overly broad and has allowed the United States to occupyAfghanistan and attack Somalia, Pakistan, and elsewhere, invade Iraq, aswell as enabling the opening of the prison camp at Guantanamo, the PATRIOTact, military tribunals, and other affronts to human, civil andconstitutional rights. The 2001 AUMF has been renewed annually byPresidents Bush and Obama, and has no provision to end the "war," atermination date nor a process or procedure to determine when theauthorization should terminate.

Recognizing that in 1986, Congress passed and the President signed the"Montgomery Amendment," which provides that a governor cannot withholdconsent with regard to active duty outside the United States because ofany objection to the location, purpose, type, or schedule of such duty, wehold that the President must act pursuant to the Constitution and laws ofthe United States. The War Powers Act of 1973 (Public Law 93-148)specifically limits the power of the President of the United States towage war without the approval of Congress. the 2001 AUMF could provide forthe National Guard to be deployed indefinitely.

Deployment of Oregon National Guard members in Afghanistan has resulted,and continues to result, in significant harm to guard members and theirfamilies, including death and injury, loss of time together, and financialhardship.

While the bill at that time focused on the then-upcoming deployment of theGuard to Iraq, we feel it is your duty to ensure that the request by thefederal government for Oregon's sons and daughters to be called intoharm's way are lawful and Constitutional.

We concur with the Eugene Register-Guard, which wrote in its editorial onDecember 4, "The Oregon Army National Guard's 41st Infantry Brigade Combatteam, with a battalion based in Springfield, is scheduled to deploy 1,800soldiers to Afghanistan in 2014. It's Oregon's second-largest overseasdeployment since World War II -- and it is a deployment that can beavoided if Obama heeds the advice of the U.S. Senate and decides that thetime has come, not for sending more troops to Afghanistan, but forbringing the 66,000 who are there now home as quickly as possible."

The Oxford Union will be hosting the Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence award presentation on 23rd January 2013. The ceremony will feature several individuals well known in intelligence and related fields, including, via video-stream, remarks by Julian Assange, winner of the Sam Adams award in 2010.

The annual award presentation provides a rare occasion for accolades to “whistleblowers” – conscience-driven women and men willing to take risks to honor the public’s need to know.

This year’s recipient is Professor Thomas Fingar, a Stanford University professor now teaching at Stanford. Dr. Fingar served from 2005 to 2008 as Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Analysis and Chairman of the National Intelligence Council.

In that role, Dr. Fingar oversaw preparation of the landmark 2007 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran, in which all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies concluded with ‘high confidence’ that Iran had halted its nuclear weapon design and weaponization work in 2003. The Estimate’s key judgments were declassified and made public, and have been revalidated every year since.

Those pressing for an attack on Iran in 2008 found themselves fighting uphill. This time, thanks largely to Dr. Fingar and the professional intelligence analysts he led in 2007, intelligence analysis on Iran was fearlessly honest. A consummate intelligence professional, Fingar would not allow the NIE to be “fixed around the policy,” the damning phrase used in the famous “Downing St. Memo” of July 23, 2002 to describe the unconscionable process that served up fraudulent intelligence to “justify” war with Iraq.

We are delighted to be welcoming several previous Sam Adams awardees, including Coleen Rowley, Katharine Gun, Craig Murray, Thomas Drake, and Julian Assange (by video-stream) – as well as other Sam Adams associates from both sides of the Atlantic, including Ray McGovern, Brady Kiesling, Davdi McMichael, Elizabeth Murray, Todd Pierce and Ann Wright.

We feel that the Oxford Union, dedicated to upholding freedom of speech and providing a platform for all points of view, is a fitting venue. The traditional acceptance speech by Dr. Fingar will be followed by briefer remarks by a few previous Sam Adams awardees.They will be followed by Julian Assange who will speak for 20 minutes immediately before the Q&A, during which the audience will be invited to put questions on any topic to any of the presenters.

Assange is clearly a figure who generates controversy for reasons ranging from the allegations made against him in Sweden, to the perceived recklessness of some WikiLeaks activities. We would therefore encourage those who disagree with him, or with any of our other speakers, to participate in the Q&A session.

Last but not least, we are happy to note that Dr. Fingar, will be with us for the entire term. Professor Fingar has just begun teaching a course at the University of Oxford on global trends and transnational issues, as part of Stanford’s Bing Overseas Studies Program. He will also give guest lectures and public talks while here at Oxford (January-March 2013).

Professor Fingar holds a PhD in political science from Stanford. His most recent book is Reducing Uncertainty: Intelligence Analysis and National Security (Stanford University Press, 2011).

When I was in high school, opposed to the Vietnam “war” and impressionable, I read Emma Goldman and discovered Peacemakers. I believed in anarchism and embraced civil disobedience.

I modified my thinking over time, but I remain politically active and call myself progressive. Among the more difficult of my struggles personally has been the line I’ve walked between art and politics, not because they don’t go together but because I never fully committed my life to art. But that’s another story.

Politically, I have become increasingly disillusioned, and I embrace OWS, in my case (un)Occupy, as one of the few movements in my lifetime in the US that addresses the broad and disparate crises of our failing economy (and capitalism), the horrors of climate change and perhaps most important, exercises a methodology of equality and inclusion. It has inspired young people who are smart, tech-savy and committed to change and the future.

JOHN HEID ARRESTED AT DAVIS-MONTHAN AIR FORCE BASE, HOME OF ACTIVE COMBAT PREDATOR DRONE UNIT

On the morning of the Feast of Holy Innocents, December 28, about 15 peace activists gathered outside the gates of Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson, Arizona to commemorate and grieve the contemporary slaughter of innocents. The group held signs calling for an end to drone warfare. An Arizona Air National Guard unit based at Davis-Monthan since 2007 operates armed Predator drones used by U.S. military in Afghanistan and elsewhere.

John Heid read his statement to the group (see below). The names of children killed by U.S. drones were then recited.

Heid, Gretchen Nielsen and Jim Marx met with the security people at the gate to request a meeting with the person in charge of the drone program. The request was refused and Tucson police were called. They arrested Heid when he refused to leave. He was charged with trespass and released from jail at 11 p.m.

“I saw men, women and children die during that time. I never thought I’d kill that many people. In fact I thought I couldn’t kill anyone at all.” -- former drone operator Brandon Bryant.

The U.S. carried out 333 drone strikes in Afghanistan in 2012 alone – more than the entire number of drone attacks in Pakistan over the past eight years combined.

Davis-Monthan Air Force Base is the staging site for the 214th Reconnaissance Group of the Arizona Air National Guard, a Predator drone unit. Personnel of the 214th have conducted more than 3,000 sorties since 2007 and provided more than 55,000 flying hours of combat mission support from Tucson.

The U.S. military has begun to use the term “harvest” to describe the killing done in this push-button combat of drone warfare. Recently the Bureau of Investigative Journalism in Britain documented 178 children among over 900 civilians killed by U.S. drones in Pakistan and Yemen alone.

Why is there such an aversion to acknowledging the human cost? Our drones are harvesting their children. These revelations are too much to bear sitting still.

“They had their whole lives ahead of them, birthdays, graduations, weddings, kids of their own.” Thus said President Obama at the memorial service for the 20 children killed in a Connecticut school two weeks ago. The president added: “We’re going to have to come together and take meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this.”

Today, December 28th, on the Commemoration of the slaughter of Holy Innocents, we embrace President Obama’s exhortation on behalf of the children by coming to Davis-Monthan AFB to call for a change of heart, of policy and practice. Cease drone operations immediately on behalf of the children and all victims of this warfare including U.S. drone pilots who are increasingly being diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress syndrome. Our plea is for an end to all warfare. May we pursue peace by peaceful means.

Natan Blanc, 19 years old from Haifa, arrived, Sunday, 22.12.12 , to the Induction Base in Tal-hashomer, where he again declared his refusal to serve in the Israeli Army. he was sentenced to 14 days of imprisonment for his refusal, in the military prison No. 6 near Atlit.

Rosalie Riegle, author of the new book on nonviolent resistance to war, Doing Time for Peace, will be in Charlottesville, Va., on January 24, 2013, to speak and sign copies of the book at Random Row Books on West Main Street at 6 p.m.

Joining her will be Sue and Bill Frankel-Streit, who are among the many resisters featured in the book.

David Hartsough has been a peace activist since the 1950s, a conscientious objector, a civil disobedient, arrested over 100 times. In 2002 he cofounded the Nonviolent Peace Force (nonviolentpeaceforce.org). Hartsough is the executive director of Peace Workers (peaceworkersus.org). He discusses the current status of war and peace in our culture.

Total run time: 29:00

Host: David Swanson.Producer: David Swanson.Engineer: Christiane Brown.Music by Duke Ellington.

They block ports, ships, submarines, trains full of weapons, trucks full of weapons, and gates to military bases. They take hammers to weapons of mass destruction, cause millions of dollars worth of damage, hang up banners, and wait to be arrested. They cause weapons systems to be canceled, facilities to be closed, and Pentagon policies to be changed. They educate and inspire greater resistance.

The people who do this take great risks. U.S. courts are extremely unpredictable, and the same action can easily result in no jail time or years behind bars. Many of these people have families, and the separation is usually painful. But many say they could not do this without their families or without their close-knit communities of like-thinking resisters. A support network of several people is generally needed for each resister.

More often than not, a great sacrifice is made with no apparent success in terms of governmental behavior, either immediately or even after a lengthy passage of time.

Police are becoming more violent. Sentences are growing longer, and prisons are becoming more awful.

Increasingly, the corporate media ignores such actions, dramatically reducing the educational and inspirational benefits. When Steve Downs was arrested for wearing a "give peace a chance" t-shirt in a shopping mall, a reporter called up a local peace group and tried to get them to admit they'd prompted Downs' action. When they said they'd never heard of him, the reporter replied, "Oh, then it's a legitimate story!" "In other words," says Downs, "if a group protests in support of their constitutional rights, it's not a legitimate story. If one hapless individual blunders into an arrest, then it is!"

And yet, people who devote themselves to nonviolently resisting war can know that they are part of a movement that does result in improved policies. And they can know that if more people joined them their chances of success would increase without limit. That is to say, if enough people joined in, complete success would be guaranteed. That is to say, peace on earth.

Rosalie Riegle has just published a wonderful collection called "Doing Time for Peace: Resistance, Family, and Community," in which she transcribes her interviews of 68 peace resisters, friends, and family members -- selected from 173 whom Riegle interviewed between 2004 and 2007. The book is not in the least polemical, more sociological. The speakers struggle with their memories and goals, and with questions about whether what they do is worth it.

The question of whether a sacrifice has been worth the effort often remains an open question for a very long time. This book collects heroic, inspiring, and eye-opening actions and presents them with undeniable honesty and humility. Imagine if millions of people were to read this book. Suddenly countless actions done quietly or with little notice would be having a whole new kind of impact, and actions engaged in decades back would be revived -- perhaps in a more illuminating manner than before, as a result of the insights gained by the participants.

One resister quoted in "Doing Time for Peace," Kathleen Rumpf, recalled an action she was part of in 1983:

"[W]e went [into the hangar] and saw the B-52 and began hammering. My little hammer would ping and then almost fly in my face without even leaving a mark. I painted on the plane: 'This is our cry, this is our prayer of peace in the world.' And the symbols we brought with us -- the pictures of the children, the indictment that we put on the plane, the blood we poured . . . . I hung paper peace cranes on the different engines. (The FBI kept calling the cranes 'paper airplanes' like they called blood 'red substance.')

"We had decided we'd do twenty minutes of hammering and putting our stuff around, no more. In reality, we were there for about two and a half hours. We didn't want to do more destruction, and we kept wondering what to do next. We phoned the press from their top security lines. We sang and prayed out on the tarmac. We went back in to go to the bathroom. We went up into a B-52 and looked around. Now, we were charged with sabotage. Had we been about that, we certainly would have had time to do it. Anyway, finally we were able to wave somebody down to arrest us. They were going to take us to the Burger King and drop us off, like they usually do for protests at Griffiss. I said, 'Well, gee! You might want to check Hangar 101 before you release us.'

"So they go to the hangar and then they get on the walkie-talkies, and then we had about sixteen or eighteen guys with forty-inch necks, marching double time with M-16 rifles. They made us kneel in the sand, holding rifles on us.

The heroes -- and I use the term intentionally -- in this book include atheists and members of various religions, but they are disproportionately Catholic and part of the Catholic Worker movement. This raises all sorts of questions for an atheist like myself who believes both that the world would be better off without religion and that the world would be better off if more people behaved as do these religiously motivated Catholics.

The primary problem with activists is their insistence on knowing that success is likely before they act. This results in a tremendous amount of inaction. So, when these religious activists say they do not care about success, or they are acting in order to suffer, or they are seeking personal transformation, I'm not eager to reject their position. I believe we are facing a crisis of militarism and environmental destruction that threatens human survival. I believe we have a moral duty to act, regardless of the chances of success. These peace resisters speak of opposing militarism in appropriately moral terms, I think. But I believe our duty is to act in the manner most likely to succeed, as far as we can identify it. Sometimes I think that is this sort of nonviolent resistance, but not always.

The resisters do not agree on everything. Some go limp when arrested. Some plead guilty. Some request the harshest sentence. Some view their defense in court and their attempt to achieve acquittal to be a central part of the action.

And some have moved toward a type of action unlikely to result in prison time, namely travel to nations threatened by or under attack by the U.S. government or its allies. Sending peace teams into zones threatened with war or facing ongoing war and occupation can involve great risk and sacrifice. It can employ the hands-on, face-to-face interactions that peace resisters value. Friendships and alliances can be built across borders that help to educate the people of both nations and influence their governments. And all without the months behind bars.

Peace resisters are my kind of Catholics. Compare them to the Pope, a former Nazi-youth whose Christmas message this week was, first, hatred for gay people, and, second, interaction between the world's religions -- not disarmament, not a cease-fire. Outgrowing the need for religion, and in the process losing a cause of deadly division, wasn't mentioned, of course. But the resisters in Riegle's collection often include their disbelief in death as part of what motivates them, what takes away their fear. And why would I want to take that away from them?

Albert Camus, generally identified as an atheist, is a frequent source of inspiration for religious resisters. Camus was very much a mournful ex-theist ever in the process of very-regretfully losing his religion and proclaiming the world absurd without it. These resisters manage to erase that absurdity. They eliminate their worries over risks of horrible fates, through their willingness to put everything on the line. Perhaps to some extent they believe they're fully insured. They clearly feel a sense of freedom when they set all worry behind them and declare their willingness to accept any suffering whatsoever in order to promote peace and resist war making.

We're in the grip of twin madnesses, and those who have overcome one of them can still be completely controlled by the other.

The first madness is the idea that spending a trillion dollars a year on weaponry and war preparations makes us safer, that 1,000 military bases abroad protect rather than provoke, that nuclear arsenals discourage terrorism, that drones have civilized the act of blowing up somebody's house, that the Pentagon's business really is "defense."

Why should our 4% of humanity need more weaponry than the rest of the world for protection? We can't be inherently that unlikable. We're caught in a vicious cycle. Our militarism encourages wars, and the wars justify more militarism. The weapons makers that the Pentagon keeps in business arm the rest of the world as well. Some imagine that even this weapons proliferation makes us safer. Meanwhile, back in reality, we're draining our budget, hollowing out our representative government, poisoning our environment, and escalating completely avoidable conflicts.

From libertarians to liberals, there are large numbers of Americans who can say to Dwight Eisenhower and Martin Luther King alike: you're right, the guns are not helping.

There is a second madness, however. It is a madness that appeals to those skeptical of governments. It is attractive to those interested in radical change, popular power, and protection of civil liberties. This is the madness that says: We need our personal supplies of guns to protect us from the government.

If our loyalties are with individual rights, popular revolution, and resistance to the corrupt fascistic tendencies of unchecked power, it's hard for us to question this idea. We hesitate, thinking, "Maybe the government does want our guns. Maybe there will come a day when we need them."

Our hesitation brings us into common ground with the gun lobby. "Take your guns away?" we declare indignantly. "Oh no! We would never want to take people's guns away. We just want them to have the right kind of guns, the right kind of bullets, the right registrations and background checks and mental health screenings. We want our personal militarism civilized by its own Geneva Conventions."

This still leaves huge gaps between those who would seek to limit and control gun ownership and the NRA. And the "reasonable gun rights" coalition can indeed point to instances of a gun being used in actual defense. But the notion of using guns to resist or reform or overthrow the government is bizarrely out of touch with reality.

There is no correlation between personal liberties in a nation and its gun ownership. Campaigns of resistance to tyranny are more likely to succeed, and that success is more likely to be lasting when those campaigns are nonviolent. Milosevic was thrown out of power in Serbia, not by violence, but by nonviolent action. In East Timor, violent resistance failed for many years before the people resorted to nonviolence and began to win. Last year in Tunisia, with not a gun in sight (or hidden away as an implied threat either), the people overthrew a dictatorship and inspired Egyptians to do the same. Meanwhile, Americans are so loaded down with guns that we're killing our own children, by accident, by fits of rage and insanity -- and we can't overthrow a card table.

Are you kidding me? If in 2000, when the U.S. Supreme Court openly stole an election, and our gun-heavy populace did nothing, if someone had predicted that our government would legalize warrantless spying, imprisonment without charge, torture, rendition, assassination, and wars fought by the CIA with flying robots before legalizing marijuana, who wouldn't have said that was crazy? We've watched this being done to us. We've watched our wealth being handed over to the war makers and the financiers. We've bought more guns, and we've done nothing. And the guns have done nothing. And anything we could do with the guns would be counterproductive.

Violence does not work anymore, not even in the heart of a society devoted to violence. Resistance movements here at home are hindered, not helped, by weaponry. The government does not want your guns; it wants your obedience. It's not afraid of your assault weapons; it's afraid of your noncooperation. An abusive government has no cause for concern as long as people believe that violence is the field on which to compete. But if we give up that mindset along with the guns, there's no telling what might happen. We might even fix this place up now, without waiting for the apocalypse.

DeWitt, N.Y. -- Thirteen anti-drone protesters were convicted of trespassing Thursday night, and five were sentenced to two weeks in jail.

Ed Kinane, of Syracuse, and James Ricks, of Ithaca, went directly after their sentencing to the Jamesville Correctional Facility.

Rae Kramer, of Syracuse, and Ellen Grady and Clare Grady, of Ithaca, were ordered to report to Jamesville Correctional on Jan. 11, said Ann Tiffany, of Syracuse, who attended the trial, which took about 5 1/2 hours in DeWitt Town Court.

The jail terms were reserved for repeat offenders, Tiffany said.

All were fined $250 plus $125 in court costs. Those not sentenced to jail were given one-year conditional discharges and required to perform 25 hours of community service, Tiffany said.

The other defendants were Daniel Burns, of Ithaca; Judy Homanich, of Binghamton; George Homanich, of Binghamton; Mark Scibilia-Carver, of Ithaca; John Hamilton, of Ithaca; Dave McClellen, of Ithaca; Nate Lewis, of Trumansburg; and Dan Burgevin, of Trumansburg.

The protesters were charged after they spent more than two hours on June 28 at Hancock Air Base’s main entrance while attempting — and failing — to deliver a “citizens’ indictment” for what they are calling reaper drone war crimes committed at the base.

They were convicted by Judge Robert Jokl in DeWitt Town Court. The 13 defended themselves without using attorneys.

The base, home of the 174th Fighter Wing of the New York Air National Guard, pilots the MQ9 reaper drone, a weaponized aerial robot, over Afghanistan and serves as the national training center for Reaper maintenance.

The indictment, prepared in consultation with former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, invokes international law, the Nuremburg Protocols, and U.S. constitutional law. The indictment charges Hancock personnel and their chain of command with responsibility for large-scale civilian deaths and with terrorism.

Erica Chenoweth is co-author with Maria J. Stephan of "Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict." Their research finds that nonviolent action works against tyrannical rule with a higher success rate than violence and with longer-lasting results. Their book has received the 2013 Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order, as well as the 2012 Woodrow Wilson Foundation Award, which the American Political Science Association gives annually to the best book on government, politics, or international affairs published in the U.S. during the previous calendar year. Listeners to Talk Nation Radio can pick up the newly-released paperback at a 30% discount from http://www.cup.columbia.edu/book/978-0-231-15682-0/why-civil-resistance-works by using the discount code WHYCHE. Learn more at http://ericachenoweth.com

Total run time: 29:00

Host: David Swanson.Producer: David Swanson.Engineer: Christiane Brown.Music by Duke Ellington.

Jennifer Foster, a tourist from Florence, Arizona, was walking in Times Square on a cold night in November and came across a New York City police officer giving a barefoot homeless man a pair of all-weather boots he had purchased out of his own pocket. Moved, she took out her cell phone and snapped a picture.

Israel's military has in recent days attacked the Gaza strip with drones and F-16s, and has apparently been preparing for a possible ground war. Israel is using weaponry provided by the United States at the expense to U.S. taxpayers of $3 billion per year. Veterans For Peace member Doug Rawlings addresses the following statement to members of the Israeli military:

"I have been to where you are going. From my heart, I beseech you not to join me. In 1969, I was sent to Vietnam as a reluctant soldier, a draftee, who did not have the courage of my convictions. I chose to follow the orders of my government rather than to follow the dictates of my conscience. It’s been over forty years now, and I still remember the faces of the Vietnamese people who were victimized by my lack of moral autonomy. I became one of Pharaoh’s army, and, to this day, I have been wading through the miasma of that murderous indecisiveness. Had I heeded Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. instead of General William Westmoreland, I would have refused to serve as a pawn in my government’s immoral invasion and occupation of Vietnam.

"Westmoreland was one of many who appealed to some kind of base sense of national self-righteousness that relegated a whole people – the “enemy”-- to a form of sub-human existence. He, too, heard from chauvinist generals like yours who demanded that we '…bomb the Vietnamese people back to the Stone Age.' Dr. King, on the other hand, was imploring us to not exploit others, to recognize the sacredness of all people, and to not 'trample over others with the iron feet of oppression.' He recognized that '…peace is not merely a distant goal we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal. We must pursue peaceful ends through peaceful means.'

"You, my friends, have become the means of your government, and it is up to you to say that you would rather be warriors for peace than serve in Pharaoh’s legions. Follow the lead of the Dr. Kings of the world, not the generals who are willing to use the blood of others to seek some kind of political goals. Rejoin the 'beloved community' of world citizens who recognize the sanctity of all human life. Reject the immoral orders of those who would send you to do their bloody bidding. Refuse orders to attack Gaza. The world is waiting for the first army of peace-makers to turn back the tide of war. Why not start with you?"

Veterans For Peace is a national organization, founded in 1985 with approximately 5,000 members in 150 chapters located in every U.S. state and several countries. It is a 501(c)3 non-profit educational organization recognized as a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) by the United Nations, and is the only national veterans' organization calling for the abolishment of war.

Brian Terrell is headed to prison at the end of this month for having nonviolently protested drone wars. Brian is a co-coordinator of Voices for Creative Nonviolence. He discusses the immorality of drone wars and the protest and trial that have led to his incarceration.

Total run time: 29:00

Host: David Swanson.Producer: David Swanson.Engineer: Christiane Brown.Music by Duke Ellington.

9 Arrested at Gate of Beale AFB early Tuesday After Veterans, Peace Activists Block Main Gate to Protest US Killer Drones

BEALE AFB (Marysville), Ca. – Nine military veterans and peace activists from throughout California were arrested around at the main gate to Beale AFB (North Beale Road) today, protesting the inhumane and cruel U.S. Drone Program, now killing thousands of innocent men, women and children around the world.

About 100 activists from as far away as Fresno, the SF Bay Area, Sacramento and other Northern California cities unfurled large banners and carried model drones and large photos of child victims of drone strikes to show the dark side of drone warfare.

Beale AFB has been a target of anti-drone protests for years. Beale AFB is home to the U2 and the Global Hawk, the unmanned surveillance drone that is an “accomplice” in drone killings.

There have been a series of direct actions leading to arrests this year protesting President Obama’s use of drones, most recently at Hancock Air Base near Syracuse, NY last Thursday, where 17 were arrested.

Activists demanded: (1) An immediate ban on the use of all drones for extrajudicial killing (2) A halt all drone surveillance that assaults basic freedoms and inalienable rights and terrorizes domestic life in Pakistan,Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen and Somalia (3) A prohibition on the sale, and distribution of drones and drone technology to foreign countries in order to prevent the proliferation of this menacing threat to world peace, freedom and security and (4) The U.S. must immediately stop this lawless behavior of drone warfare that violates many international laws and treaties.

“US military and CIA Drone attacks have killed thousands of innocent civilians, including women and children, in the Middle East, Somalia, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. In the name of combating terrorism against the U.S. we are terrorizing innocent people, and creating many more enemies and potential terrorists in the process,” said a statement issued by Veterans for Peace, Code Pink, Chico Peace and Justice Center, Nevada County Peace Center, Peace Fresno, WILPF and World Can’t Wait.

Israeli conscientious objector Moriel Rothman, 23 year old, from Jerusalem, arrived in the morning of Wednesday, 24 October 2012, to the Induction Base in Jerusalem, where he declared his refusal to serve in the Israeli Army as it is an occupying force. He was sentenced to 10 days of imprisonment for his refusal.

It seems as though most Americans don’t know that the Obama administration has backed off its commitment to stop a Canadian oil firm from bringing dangerous and toxic tar sands from the fields in Alberta, Canada to oil refineries in Texas. But in East Texas, the farm lands and forests have been seized for the Canadian company through eminent domain and are already being destroyed for the foreign pipeline.

Yesterday, October 24, Leslie Harris of Dallas, Texas and I visited the “boys” in the trees, the great activists who have been living in the trees along the Trans Canada Keystone XL pipeline that is carving a terrible scar in the countryside of East Texas. Earlier in the day we had been meeting with dozens of Tar Sands Blockade (TSB) activists who are preparing campaigns in East Texas and Houston to challenge the XL pipeline.

Kimberly, from Mesquite, Texas, deployed to Iraq in 2006. After several months, she found that she could not in good conscience continue to participate in the war. While in the US on leave, she and her family sought asylum in Canada. Unfortunately, the Canadian government denied her asylum and on September 20th, she and her family voluntarily returned to the US. She was arrested at the border and is currently at Fort Carson, Colorado, awaiting a decision by her command as to what her fate will be.

We are reaching out to you today to ask if you would be willing to write a letter of support for Kim.

Here is a bit of background about Kim, and below are guidelines for letters of support:

UPDATE: 17 arrested, 4 released, 13 held on bail from $200 to $1000, and all 17 given a restraining order by Earl A Evans, base commander, banning them from the base. The "temporary order of protection" is for a year "protecting" the base commander from nonviolent protesters with posters. The 17 have been charged with trespass and disorderly conduct.

***

Once again nonviolent protesters of U.S. drone wars have been arrested at the gates of Hancock Air Field in New York State. Thursday morning, 19 people blocked the three gates to the base for a period of hours beginning at 8 a.m. Eventually, the front gate was opened after 11 people were arrested, including Elliott Adams of Veterans For Peace, as well as James Ricks, Bonny Mahoney, Paul Frazier, Ed Kinane, Mike Perry, Judy Bello, Andrea Levine, Dan Vergevin, Paki Weiland, and one other.

For the first time in nearly a decade, nonviolent civil resisters caused a disruptive breach of the backcountry security zones at Vandenberg Air Force Base (VAFB), coinciding with the 50th anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis. VAFB enforces a sweeping global pattern of violent high-tech military abuse. Three participants were arrested for federal trespass and others eluded base security patrols. One participant [Theo Kayser] was hand-cuffed face down on the ground with an M-16 automatic rifle trained on his back during his 2 a.m. arrest, while search lights swept the surrounding hills. He was then held under armed guard for nine hours at a special security command post which VAFB had set up to deal with the backcountry occupation. Vandenberg security stated that they believed at least 15 individuals were spotted in base security zones between 0ctober 20th and 21st.

Calling the latest sailing of a boat to challenge the Israeli naval blockade of Gaza a “provocation", Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations Ron Prosor, called on the UN Secretary-General, the Security Council, and all responsible members of the international community to take immediate action to end this provocation.”

Prosor added, “I want to stress that Israel is not interested in confrontation, but remains determined to enforce its naval blockade of the Gaza Strip — and will take all lawful actions to this end. Their clear provocation raises tensions and could easily spark a serious escalation of the conflict.”

Seven parliamentarians from 5 European countries are on sailing on the sloop “Estelle” to break the Israeli Blockade of Gaza. Among the 20+ passengers are parliamentarians fromGreece, Norway, Spain, Sweden, and a retired parliamentarian from Canada.

Over 80 Irish Parliamentarians have signed a petition of support for the “Estelle’s” mission and 70 Greek Parliamentarians have also signed their petition.

Passengers from Canada, Finland, Greece, Israel, Italy, Norway, Spain and Sweden are on the “Estelle.”

All onboard are peaceful civilians who have received refresher non-violence training.

The “Estelle” carries a cargo of aid to the Israeli blockaded Palestinian population of Gaza, and a cargo of solidarity. It also carries an anchor and communication equipment needed for the construction of Gaza's Ark (see www.gazaark.org).

The “Estelle” is expected to reach Gaza by this weekend.

About the Author: Ann Wright served in the US Army/Army Reserves for 29 years and retired as a Colonel. She was also in the US Diplomatic Corps for 16 years and resigned in 2003 in opposition to the Iraq war. She has traveled to Gaza four times since the Israeli attack on Gaza that killed 1440, wounded 5,000 and left 50,000 homeless. She was an organizer for the 2009 Gaza Freedom March that brought 1300 persons from 55 countries to Cairo in solidarity with the people of Gaza and was on the 2010 and 2011 Gaza Freedom Flotillas. She is an organizer for Gaza’s Ark.

Thousands of social justice activists from across the Americas will gather at the gates of Fort Benning, GA, to call for an end to U.S. militarization and for the closure of the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, formerly the School of the Americas.

Columbus, Georgia - 10 days after the November elections, the November Vigil will put grassroots pressure behind the demands for an end to U.S. militarization and for the closing of the SOA/ WHINSEC, no matter who wins the elections. The recent announcements by Ecuador and Nicaragua to join Argentina, Bolivia, Uruguay, and Venezuela in pulling their troops out of the SOA/ WHINSEC have put the Pentagon on the defensive about the viability of their flagship training school.

The three-day convergence is the largest annual anti-militarization convergence in North America. It will include a massive rally on Saturday, November 17, where thousands will gather at Fort Benning’s gates to demand an end to Washington-backed violence in Latin America. A funeral procession will follow on Sunday to commemorate the victims of U.S. militarism. The mobilization will also include workshops, concerts, a strategy session, and more.

The SOA/WHINSEC is a U.S. taxpayer-funded military training school for Latin American soldiers, located at Fort Benning, Georgia. The school made headlines in 1996 when the Pentagon released training manuals used at the school that advocated torture, extortion and execution. But this admission, to say nothing of fact that hundreds of SOA alumni have been implicated in human rights abuses, has never prompted an independent investigation into the training facility. On September 20, 2012, Al Jazeera ran the story, “The School of the Americas: Class Over?” The piece is available here: http://aljazeera.com/programmes/insidestoryamericas/2012/09/201292081054585410.html

“The Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation is part of the failed mindset that says that social problems can be ‘solved’ through military solutions. This mindset has brought us the failed ‘War on Drugs’ and has killed thousands of people.” said SOA Watch founder Father Roy Bourgeois. SOA Watch will be demonstrating in mid-November to set an agenda against U.S. militarization.

In 1966, when I was a senior at Fortuna High, military recruiters were a fixture at our school. They made regular appearances in their dress uniforms with all their pleats and flaps and brass buttons and medals. And they would give us their best speech. “You'll be heading off to Vietnam,” they told us. “You'll see plenty of action and come back heroes with a chest full of medals because you fought for the most powerful army in the world. And you'll be better for the experience.”

October 30, 2012 will be a day of fasting for SOA Watch; a time to organize fasts in your community to bring attention to SOA/WHINSEC victims and an opportunity for each of us to commit ourselves to closing this place of injustice. Local fasts nationwide can educate the public about the School of the Americas / WHINSEC, the reality of U.S. foreign policy towards Latin America, and the upcoming November Vigil at the gates of Fort Benning, Georgia (November 16-18, 2012).

If you are fasting as part of a group or by yourself on October 30, please click here to pledge your participation in the 2012 Fast to Close the SOA: http://SOAW.org/fast

Below you will find a few suggestions of possible public fast locations or events you could plan in your community on or around Tuesday, October 30, 2012. We encourage you to be creative in planning your fast or events, and keep us informed of what's going on out in your region! Some fast or event locations could include:

Outside a district Congressional office that has not supported legislation to close the SOA/WHINSEC

Good luck with your planning! If you have questions or suggestions, please call the DC SOA Watch Office at 202-234-3440

Share the info about the fast on your Facebook page or your Twitter account!

If you are going to organize a public fast, e-mail us at info@soaw.orgClose the SOA Fast!When we fast in front of Federal buildings, we can raise awareness about one of the great evils that our government sustains. We can invite those who witness our fast to flood the White House comment line with phone calls at 202-456-1111, to express our opposition to the continued operations at the SOA/ WHINSEC. We can use our fast to show the media and the public that the U.S. government needs to be held accountable.

You can participate in this one-day fast by organizing a place for you and your friends to fast together, or by fasting individually.

If you are fasting as part of a group or by yourself on October 30, please click here to pledge your participation in the 2012 Fast to Close the SOA: http://SOAW.org/fast

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